


Displaced

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Losgar, Siblings, sharing a body with your twin when one of you dies, sons of feanor - Freeform, the "Ambarussa are one soul in two bodies" theory, twin feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 23:10:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: Halloween prompt: "houseless spirits"





	Displaced

Ambarto was dying.

He had thought about dying before it happened, of course; they all had. In an abstract sense though, a distant possibility. A glorious death on the battlefield, a momentous cusp of fate, to be memorialised and echo down the ages in songs. A light against the darkness their spirits were promised.

That was not, in the event, how it happened. 

The ship burned quickly, timbers creaking and whistling as dry heat consumed it, hungrily devouring the elegant pale wood, worked by hands of dead mariners on distant shores. The last thing Ambarto felt was heat, thick and choking smoke dulling his senses as the mast fell upon him with a burning crash. 

Though it was not enough to dull the pain. There was so much _pain_ ; his brother was feeling it too, he knew. They had known from an early age that they were two intertwined spirits, not quite confined to their own bodies but spilling each over into each other at times.

But it had never _hurt_ like this before. Neither of them had ever thought it would be like this.

The last thing that Ambarto heard was his brother screaming, though, some part of his mind said, it was too far to the shore, the roaring and crackling of hungry flame was too loud. There was no way he could really hear those keening cries. But hear them he did, if only in his mind, the sounds of anguish as he felt the pull of the Void tugging on his _fëa_ , and their half-shared spirit was torn slowly - agonisingly - asunder. 

Their eldest brother was holding Ambarussa fast, keeping him from flinging himself into the sea and towards the burning ship in his agony. He didn’t even know how he knew this, but he did. _Please,_ Ambarto sobbed as the smoke overcame him and he died, _let it be quick. Let him stop hurting._

For him, at least, it did, a mere moment later as he felt himself decoupled from his body, floating in a haze of smoke and red flame, fading moment by moment to a textureless Void. As his brothers’ cries faded, the words of the Oath, the Doom, began to ring in his ears. He would be drawn to Mandos, he knew. 

He was not afraid, he told himself.

(He _was_ afraid, though. He had never been without Ambarussa before. The dark he could face, maybe, with his twin there too. But he had never even imagined the possibility of facing it alone. That was too fearful to even contemplate.)

The Void yawned at his feet.

But only for a moment; the next instant, he felt - to his very great surprise - a pull in the opposite direction. If he had been more than a houseless spirit, he would have cried out as he felt himself being pulled both ways, tugged back and stretched thin by something in the living world, binding his _fëa_ like a ship’s anchor.

Suddenly something snapped, the tension breaking.

There was a roaring in his ears. He began to feel heat on his face, smelled smoke, felt pain once more. The world was loud, and bright, and sudden, his father’s face swimming incomprehensibly into view. 

He was lying on his back on the ground, he realised. Even more confusingly, he was in his body again. And - joy spiked in his throat, fierce enough to make him choke out a sob - he could feel Ambarussa’s familiar spirit bond, close and warm, bright and familiar. 

“He’s awake!”

The shout - his brother Tyelkormo’s loud voice - hurt his ears. Ambarto clamped his hands over them, as they all clustered around. Even their father was there, Ambarto saw with a twist of something painful in his chest. _His fault_. But right now, Ambarto didn’t care about that; he cared only about seeing one person.

“A…” he choked out, coughing. His throat hurt, and he could taste blood. “Am…barussa. Where is…” he frowned, seeking out his brother’s _fëa_. “Where’s Ambarussa?”

Nobody answered. The others all looked at each other, with degrees of nervousness, rage and grief. 

“Am-Ambarussa!” he said, louder. “Where…”

No one said anything. Ambarto began to panic, feeling hot tears come, stinging, burning like fire.

“He’s…” Macalaurë looked back at the others doubtfully. “Brother, do you… do you remember what happened?” 

Ambarto simply stared at him. “The ship…” he said, doubtful. “It… was burning… I couldn’t get back to him, though I could hear him screaming…”

His brother’s face was tense, teeth gritted in pain. He nodded sorrowfully, tears making clear tracks in the dark soot-stains on his cheeks, though they were far from the burning. “We… we couldn’t save him.” Macalaurë clasped his hands, staring straight into his eyes. “But… but I swear to you, brother, he will be remembered in song. His death will _mean_ something, I promise you that…”

Ambarto was no longer listening; his brother’s words faded into the buzzing filling his skull. _Dead_ … but Ambarussa couldn’t be. Ambarto could feel his presence after all, still clear and close. And _he_ had been the one on the ship… hadn’t he? His mind took hold of the empty places in his memory, filled the void up with horrible possibilities. Had the worst happened? Had his brother somehow thrown himself to his aid at the last, sacrificing his own life and saving Ambarto’s?

He himself had been _dead_ though… hadn’t he?

_< <Have you figured it out yet, brother?>>_

He started, blinking, as the voice seemed to come from _within_ him; inside his own head, though not _from_ him. But it was so familiar, so reassuring, that he could not help but laugh, causing the others to stare. “Ambarussa! You’re here?” he burst out, making his older brothers look at each other in obvious alarm and concern.

_< <Sshh, stupid! Yes, I’m here. And you are too. You’ve got me to thank for that, you know.>>_

Ambarto frowned, limiting his thoughts to inside his head this time; he found he knew instinctively that he didn’t need to talk out loud. _< <What…?>>_ he cast around, struggling to understand. He had been on the ship, and now he was on land. He had been dying - no, _dead_ surely - and now he was alive again. 

He changed his question. _< <Where are you?>>_

For a moment there was no answer. But then something unexpected happened, making him gasp a little.

His hand _moved_ , quite on its own. He was not controlling it, but he saw it rise up, staring at the palm. Where he could see skin under his leather bracer, his fingers were torn and bloodied, dirty from… clawing at the ground? He looked doubtfully down at the dusty earth, where they were corresponding scratch-marks. He didn’t remember doing that. He stared and stared at the hand, trying to understand.

Something was _wrong_ , but he didn’t know what. 

_< <Not that>>_ said his brother’s voice in his head, a little impatient. _< <The scar, Ambarussa.>>_

And then he understood; his eyes widened as they locked onto the little crescent-shaped scar at the base of the thumb. A silvered trace left over from a first attempt at whittling, back in their garden outside of Tirion behind their father’s workshop, so long ago and a world away. A knife slipping in a small hand, blood and a child’s tears, a brother holding his other hand. Their father wrapping it in bandages and kissing the pain away.

The only thing was, it was not his scar. It was not even his _memory_. 

It was his brother’s.

He turned his hand over; sure enough, the freckles were different, like constellations in a foreign sky. It was disorientating, enough to make his stomach churn, his mind dizzy. 

_< <Ambarussa…>>_ he said to the voice in his head as Tyelkormo rushed forward to help him so he didn’t collapse to the floor; he was only dimly aware of his brothers clustering close, their father still hanging back a little. _< <I…I died…>>_

_< <Yes>>_ said his brother. His hand - no, _their_ hand, Ambarto realised - moved once more without his conscious control, placing itself on the ground to steady them. _< <You did.>> _

_< <What happened?>>_

_< < I… don’t know exactly. But I think… I think I pulled you back? I think we’re connected. I mean, we are connected, but… I don’t know.>>_ He felt Ambarussa’s spirit-presence quail and flicker - so _close_ now, their emotions were hardly distinguishable, blending into one - twining close around his own as though in a tight and fierce embrace. _< <You idiot!>>_ He was angry now. _< <I can’t lose you! I can’t do any of this without you!>>_

Ambarto had to stifle sob that was half a nervous laugh, causing Maitimo to lay a solicitous hand on his forehead, as though checking for fever. _< <I’m sorry, brother.>>_

_< <Don’t ever do that again!>>_

Amidst his spirit-brother’s words, Ambarto felt in intimate detail the pain that he had experienced before, that great tearing void opening up in his heart. He felt tears roll down his face. _< <Trust me, I don’t plan to. I’m so, so sorry.>>_

_< <That’s alright. Just… stay.>>_

_< <I will.>>_ His awareness snapped back suddenly to the present. The others were asking questions, Ambarto dimly realised. _< <Hey, Ambarussa? What do we tell them?>>_

A slight, rueful laugh. _< <Well, don’t ask me? You’re the one who died!>>_

_< <I didn’t mean to!>>_

There was the mental equivalent of a snort of derision. But his brother quickly sobered. _< <I think… I think we can’t die without each other>>_ he said. _< <I think… we can’t go to the darkness unless it’s both of us. As long as this body is alive, then… both of our fëar will be bound to call this world their home. That’s what I think, anyway.>>  
_

Ambarto realised there were still tears on his face, more coming all the time. Though whether they were his own or Ambarussa’s, he didn’t know. He was still unclear on the distinction, and whether it even mattered, now. 

_< <Shit,>>_ he thought, something else occurring to him. _ <<Fuck… what will they call us?>>_

He felt his brother smile with his own face. _< <Well… Ambarussa always did suit us both well enough, didn’t it?>>_

* * *

They were not called Ambarussa, as it happened; or at least the songs and the histories would not remember them as having that name. Amrod and Amras, and sometimes the two were mixed together, by one scholar or another. It became something of a joke amongst the two of them and their brothers, in the end.

Their father died without knowing. But the first of their brothers to see it was Tyelkormo; he was Celegorm already then, a colder and harder person than he had been. But still sharp and instinctual, the one who had always known them best. He had good intuition for such things, if such things there were in this world.

In time though, it simply became routine, this sharing of a body; by the time they could switch places, whether handing off and sharing control or bickering over it as they had with their toys since they were young children, then it was simply a matter of one of them being corporeal while the other drifted nearby, twined their presence close around them. 

They almost never strayed far, even though they could have if they wanted to. Being unhoused, lacking a physical vessel, was uncomfortable, but the distance… well, that was unbearable.

They ruled their lands alongside their brothers, they fought and won, then failed and fell and fled. They killed for the Oath, and wrote their curse in blood upon the pages of history, as was always meant to be.

They died together on the sands of Sirion, the sea-foam pink with blood as the tide came in, drawing away the last of their life-blood into the sighing sea under a sunset red as a wound.

And at last, as the final light of day faded, at long last they held each others’ hands as their _fëar_ rose from their broken body together, turning as one to look across the sea, seeing only an endless night.

 


End file.
